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What 'Sheed Says When He Says "Ball Don't Lie!"
“Pistons Sheed” (Nathan McKee, 2014, Giclee Print, 13 x 19) In my post yesterday, I analyzed the structure of a foul call in an NBA game to show that a foul doesn’t cause the whistle to blow (as the...
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Sterling and the Foundations of the Modern Basketball State
Somewhat under-examined in the Donald Sterling Shit Show of the past week has been Sterling’s rhetorical question asserting his creative importance as owner: “Do I make the game? Or do they make the...
View ArticleValues of College Sport Symposium
As some of you know, with my colleagues Silke Weineck and Stefan Szymanski I’ve organized a two-day symposium devoted to a discussion of the question: what that we value do we gain and lose by virtue...
View ArticleIn Praise of Inefficiency and the Incalculable
Much has been written in recent days about the Cleveland Cavaliers improbable victories over the Golden State Warriors in Games 2 and 3 of the NBA Finals. The Warriors, the NBA’s best team during this...
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Why I Can’t Get Excited About NBA Transactions
This is the biggest week in pro basketball’s off-season. Over the past week, avid interest in the big news and minute details of both the NBA draft and free agency has swept up citizens of the...
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The Culture of Moving Dots
Today I listened to a very well crafted, informative lecture by Rajiv Maheswaran on how basketball teams are using movement tracking devices and computing power to inform the decisions they make about...
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Bad Prof’s Top Basketball Books – Second Team
Yesterday, I began presenting the list of my favorite basketball books with my First Team All-Bad Prof selections. Today I move on to the second team (presented alphabetically by title), using the...
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Bad Prof’s Top Basketball Books – Third Team
Having selected my First Team and Second Team All-Bad Prof Books, I’m moving out of the top ten today. However, it’s important to say that these books are classics, that I personally love them, and...
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Bad Prof’s Top Basketball Books – Honorable Mention
Perhaps by now you’ve seen my First Team, Second Team, and Third Team All-Bad Prof Basketball Book List selections. They were the fifteen books, grouped into three tiers of five, that I’ve returned to...
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Damn Horses! On Paying College Athletes
The Allrounder (which I love and am proud to be a part of) published an interview with Duke University political theorist Michael Gillespie about the issue of paying college athletes, which he thinks...
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Just How Exploited Are My Students? An Adventure
Yesterday, I tweeted this out: It’s gotten a certain amount of traction (Twitter tells me around 20,000 people have seen that Tweet) and so I began to be concerned that I was being irresponsibly...
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Basketball Analytics (Take 2): Winning
I’m realizing from the feedback on my post about basketball analytics that the issues the phenomenon raises are more complex than what I’d thought or allowed for in that post. In fact, they are too...
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Integrating Academics and Athletics in the American College and University
Last week I spoke at Oberlin College, where the Athletics Department had invited me to share some of my ideas on this topic. The turnout was impressive, the audience engaged and responsive, and the...
View ArticleThe Culture of Moving Dots
Here is a video of “The Culture of Moving Dots: Toward a History of Counting and of What Counts in Basketball,” a public presentation I gave last week at a workshop on “Doing Sport History in the...
View Article5 for the Fab 5 @ 25
The Fab Five first set foot on Michigan’s campus 25 years ago. The first group of freshman ever to start for a major college program, they led their teams to consecutive NCAA Men’s Basketball...
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Why Fab 5 at 25?
This is the text of my opening remarks for the Fab 5 @ 25 round table symposium. The University video taped the event and will be making that available to the public, hopefully before too long. The...
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Hail. No.
The shoes are pretty sick, but I literally would not wear them even if Nike paid me to. I’m not even going to show a picture. Because the shoes are fucking sick. I have seen and heard (and smelled) a...
View ArticleBlack Athletes, Activism, and the Media Panel at Oberlin College
Last week, as part of Oberlin College’s celebration of Black History Month, I had the honor of hosting and moderating a panel discussion on Black Athletes, Activism, and the Media. The panelists...
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